Merry Sincere
by sweetserenity62
Summary: Hermione Granger has a to-do list. She has one task that she can't seem to check off. Number Seven: Wish Draco Malfoy a Merry Christmas.


There was a knock on the door, and Draco Malfoy smiled with an unholy glee. Another Ministry toady, making the rounds with Christmas greetings. He didn't find much joy in Christmas generally, but these little exchanges did tend to brighten up his day. The brownnosers would open the door with professionally bland smiles, with tone-deaf carols on their lips. Little elves bending joy into ennui through routine and insincerity. But not today. Today they would swing open the door to Office 14 of the Arithmancy subdivision of the Potions department and recoil in horror when they realised they had stumbled upon the Ministry pariah. He had even taken down the name tag from his door, to bamboozle the ones with a few brain cells to rub together. They were very rare, something he found completely unsurprising.

He was hardly the first shady character the Ministry had ever hired, but the usual kind was either so charming that everyone overlooked their foibles or so wealthy that they were untouchable. He was neither. After the Malfoy assets were seized for war reparations, he became poor as dirt, his name even filthier. Reduced to this state, he had no interest in being charming. No amount of charm could fix his situation, so what was the point? It was all wasted energy.

His parents were locked away for life, so he had the burden of bearing the Malfoy name in society all to himself. Most of his own crimes came with the word 'attempted' in front. It was still a long list and it should have been enough to bury him, but Luna Lovegood's testimony had earned him mercy. A year in prison, a squeaky clean prison, built by the new good guys, one that hadn't had the chance to be corrupted yet. His cell had almost been nicer than his current ratty apartment.

Under oath before the Wizengamot, Lovegood had thanked him for sneaking her extra food, for clandestinely healing wounds and for shielding her from his Aunt's wrath. All lies. He had done nothing for the girl but avert his eyes and try desperately to pretend she didn't exist. She had visited him every week in prison and then pulled strings with her hero friends to land him a junior office drudge job in a quiet Ministry department. She had never given him a good reason for her bizarre kindness. Just some wishy-washy nonsense about doing it for another Draco Malfoy, one that didn't exist yet.

As far as he was concerned, this Draco Malfoy was all there would ever be. The grinchy Draco Malfoy that deeply appreciated his ability to spread confusion and misery to mindless peons without having to move an inch from his desk. He glanced briefly at the misshapen radish Luna had given him as an office-warming present, then looked away. He wasn't doing anything actively bad. He was merely being welcoming to his colleagues by leaving the door unlocked.

As usual, the intruder swung the door open without waiting for any signs of life. Manners were dead. His mother would have been horrified. He suspected that at least half of his visitors were using rudeness as an excuse to cover nefarious intentions. To snoop around in an unoccupied office. To catch someone in the middle of a blackmail-worthy act. He didn't have the energy for such tricks anymore, but he could admire them in someone else. A very small dose of admiration before a lightning-quick smiting.

He froze mid-smite when he saw the tell-tale bushy hair wrestling with the tinsel hung across his doorway. Now _he_ was the one recoiling in horror.

Hermione Granger eventually disentangled herself with a huff and then turned to face him. "I never pictured you as the tinsel type."

She was wearing a red jumper, but thankfully there was no santa hat or reindeer ears. He didn't think his sanity could cope with that after a three-year-long absence of Granger. Even in normal clothes, she took adjusting to.

Her eyes were keener than they had any right to be, taking in every last sad detail of his shoebox office. He knew the best way to distract her was to put her on the offence. Draco had always had a particular brand of sneer that was reserved for Granger. Facial expressions needed to be tailored to their audience. It didn't matter where you stood in your own eyes. It was all about making the recipient understand that they stood lower. For Granger, he needed to use an extra shot of arrogance, to bring himself high enough that he could condescend to her appropriately. He found that the sneer came as easily to him as ever, after all this time, which was a pleasant surprise. "Of course not. It's cheap plastic for the masses. Trowning decorated the office."

"I see."

"You should be familiar enough with his bad taste." Trowning had been her boss first. He was sure they had gotten along like peas in a pod. Both annoying and self-righteous.

"I wasn't in the department during the holiday season."

"That's right. I joined up last November." He had been dreading the thought of seeing Hermione Granger at work everyday, but she had already left. He had practically seen her skid marks on the floor.

Hermione sidled forward. _Don't sit down. Don't sit down. _He couldn't ask her not to, of course, because that would show that her presence affected him.

She sat down. Worse, she settled deep into the seat, crossing her legs. "I can see that Padma was right. She told me that there was a little misunderstanding between us. That you thought I quit the department because they hired you."

That conversation had happened at the compulsory office holiday shindig and involved copious amounts of Firewhiskey. He only remembered the gist of it. Pathetic whining that should never have left his lips. He had remained sober since that night. His life plan was to be stoic. Unflappable. Unapproachable. And yet here he was, being approached. He would try again in the new year. This year was already tainted, so he might as well satisfy his curiosity. "Didn't you?"

"It was a coincidence. I was offered a promotion."

There was a trace of pride in her bearing. Well-earned pride. He tried to think of something to counteract it. Some of the hair near her ears was shorter and extra fuzzy, as though she had tried out misguided bangs and was still growing them back out. He resisted the urge to touch his own hair. It was too long. He could only afford cheap barbers on his salary and they made too much small talk.

Bile rose up in his throat. _He_ was lucky to land any job at all. He could slave away for the next fifty year, but he would never be promoted any further. "Convenient timing. They whisked you away before you could be besmirched by my unworthy presence."

She just smiled. "I thought you would be hard to convince. So I brought along some evidence."

He watched impatiently as she dragged out a roll of crumpled parchment from her satchel. She handed it over with a flourish. "Number Seven."

There was no title, but he could see that it was some a checklist. Redesign quarantine protocol. Knit birthday present for baby James. Research Lacewing Fly applications. Blah blah blah. Just what he would have expected. A mixture of snore-inducing projects, sickening sentimentality and a hero complex. Checks beside every item. Until he reached Number Seven. _Wish Draco Malfoy a Merry Christmas._

"Do you see now? I wasn't avoiding you. I didn't have any vendettas. I wanted to bury the hatchet."

"All I see that you put me on your little list of chores. And then you didn't even follow through. You, Hermione Granger, left a box unchecked. You _failed_. Wasn't that your Boggart fear? You must have been simmering with hatred to let that happen."

She shook her head. "I'm not a little girl anymore. I have bigger fears. You're projecting. I didn't have the chance to stop by last Christmas because the circumstances changed…"

"You could have sent a Christmas card in the post. You sent them to all of your old co-workers. They even put them on a special shelf, in the place of honour. You didn't want to play nice. You wanted to rub my face in your angelic goodness, to look down on me from your pedestal, while hating me on the inside. But you feared your acting wasn't up to scratch. I see right through you."

There was a faint blush on her cheeks. He couldn't tell if it was from embarrassment or anger. "Wrong again. The whole problem was that I didn't want the words to be empty. It wasn't hatred. I haven't hated you for years. I just didn't think I could say the words sincerely. I didn't wish misery on you, but I didn't want you to be merry either."

"Well, consider the feeling mutual."

"I don't want to feel that way. This is important Malfoy. This is what happened to the generation before us. And the one before that. They suppressed all of their bad will under a veil of neutrality and detachment until it burst out again. We need to break the cycle."

"What do you want? An apology?" She wasn't getting one. If he started apologising, it would become a full-time job, and he already had one of those.

"No. If I hadn't already forgiven you, I wouldn't be here."

"You've been talking to Lovegood. She has a wild imagination. Any heroic deeds she ascribed to me were nonsense. So your forgiveness is null and void. You can go back to hating me."

"Luna told me the truth, the real truth. I thought she went a bit far during the trial, but I understand why she did. You were just a boy and your punishment was enough. I might not like you very much but I know you aren't evil."

He made to interject, but she cut him off with a wave of her hand. "You _aren't_ evil. That isn't up for debate here, not today. Just accept the forgiveness at face value for now, so we can move on. We need more than that. I need to be able to wish you well. Sincerely. That's the only way forward, away from the bitterness of the past."

"I can't help you with that. I don't wish anyone well." He turned his attention back to his work. He expected her to storm out in a huff. After a few moments, he realised he hadn't heard any footsteps, so he looked up. She had stood up from her seat, but she was still there. "This is the part where you leave."

She stepped closer, circling around the desk. "Look, you were right. I don't like to leave things unfinished. I wish I hadn't written that goal down. It was a silly and trite way to express a complicated problem. But I don't think it's unachievable. I just need to change my perspective. I have a theory. Something I want to try."

He kept his gaze steadily on her while his hand scribbled nonsense all over an important report. He wished he had cast a ward around his desk, but it had never seemed necessary until now. Only his surety in her Gryffindor ethics and her empty hands kept him from flinching. "Let me guess, you want to hold hands and talk about our feelings?"

"My plan doesn't involve any talking."

She stepped past his comfort zone with one long stride.

He stood up from his chair on instinct. He didn't like being towered over. For their whole conversation they had been talking to the office more than to each other. All half-glances and distance. Now they were face-to-face. Granger took an infinitesimal step closer, then stopped, looking up with a question. There was no doubt about her intentions. There were only two reasons for her to ever come this close to him, and she wasn't exhibiting any signs of violence. He knew what that looked like.

He stared at her incredulously. "You think a kiss, a kiss between us, will fix everything? Bam, fairy-tale ending?"

He had spent an embarrassingly long amount of time reading Muggle fairy-tales. When he was in prison, Luna had come bearing presents. Mostly odd little things, like the radish. But she had also slipped him storybooks. There were fairy-tale things that he could see the value in. Remote cottages in the wood. Impenetrable towers. A hundred years of sleep. He didn't care for the endings but he liked the middle parts. The endings were unrealistic and undesirable. He absolutely did not believe in true love's kiss.

Granger screwed up her nose. "Of course not. I don't want a happily ever after. Especially not with you. I just need to push past logic, to override years of habit and impulses. We've already established that talking won't work. This is the only other way I can think of. Books aren't always right. I know that. But there has to be some truth in them. And one of the most common things you find in the oldest stories is…"

He couldn't agree with her. It was too sappy and optimistic. But if Hermione Granger wanted to make a fool of herself, who was he to stand in her way? He nodded.

She closed the gap between them without moving her feet, slowly swaying towards him. She was too far away. After years of quidditch, he knew when someone was about to fall, on or off a broom. He could let her. She would trip clumsily, he would laugh, and the spell would be broken. They would go back to being mild antagonists, when they crossed paths at all. But she was right. Damn it, she was right. Eventually years of small snipes and bitter memories would turn their relationship into pure poison. He suddenly understood Luna's philosophy. He needed to fix things for future Draco. And if the stories were right, there was a simple cure for poison. He took a deep breath to make sure his brain had enough oxygen. It did. This wasn't suffocation or a stroke. It was just her insane logic infecting him. He made his decision.

He wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her and swooped in for the kiss. There was no mystical light, no earth-shattering magic. Just quiet revelations. Things he didn't expect. His hands were surer than hers, manoeuvring them into delicious contact. But she could do amazing things with her tongue, things that made it impossible to hold back a moan. She responded in kind, willing to let her inhibitions go unashamedly, after he had broken down first. For every hard plane, there was a soft one, and they were both an integral part of the kiss. When he felt an insecurity, his instinct was to soothe it with a touch on her cheek. But when she pushed, he pushed back harder, without giving quarter. It was every little detail he knew about her, put into motion. And he found that he liked some of the details. Not all of them. Her bossy tendencies almost derailed the kiss once or twice, and she had a habit of stepping on his toes. But she gave him room to breathe just when he was running out of air, she smelled nice, and she was ticklish under her left knee. He liked kissing her. That was the biggest revelation.

When the kiss was over they avoided each other's gazes. It had been a good kiss. He didn't need to look at her now to know that she felt the same way. It was crackling in the air between them, something he couldn't put a name to. Something too messy and real to be found in the pages of a fairy-tale. His thoughts were racing too fast. He needed space to think.

She obliged, heading for the door almost immediately. She threw a few parting words over her shoulder as she left. "Merry Christmas Draco."

His plans for the new year had involved being safe and undisturbed and invisible. Merriness hadn't even been a possibility. But Hermione Granger was a force of nature. If she put something on her to-do list, it _would_ be checked off. If she wanted him to be merry, he had better prepare to be merry. A smile came out of nowhere, followed by hysterical laughter. Perhaps he could see some value in kisses after all, but he thought that they belonged to the middle of the story, not the end. He didn't know where the next year would lead, or where the former and present thorn in his side would fit into it. But he knew his next move. Get rid of that awful tinsel.


End file.
